Twitter shares were climbing in afternoon trading ahead of the report. But the San Francisco-based social network has shed roughly $14 billion in value this year, according to FactSet data, with its market cap having dipped below its IPO day level.

Twitter’s market cap stood at $24.5 billion after its first trading day in November, and soared to about $40 billion at the end of December, before sliding to a little under $23 billion today. Twitter shares are still trading above its IPO price of $26. The stock was last up 2.2% at $38.76.

The slower-than-expected rate at which Twitter has added monthly users has been the key factor for the more downbeat view on Wall Street.

Twitter reportedly will push new metrics by which its reach should be measured, but for now, analysts are zeroing in on how many monthly active users the site added in the last quarter.

The current consensus estimate is for an additional 12 million monthly users for a total of roughly 267 million, up from 255 million.

But there are still questions on Twitter’s ability to keep its users engaged, and to add new ones.

“Twitter has very high activations, but also very high leakage after only a few tries,” he told clients in a note. “It’s easy to forget that Twitter is a fairly new company and user experience is still a work in progress that has only recently become top priority. There is ample room for improvement.”

But Forrester analyst Nate Elliott also said Twitter “has a growth problem.”

“It hasn’t been able to attract enough users in the past year, and that’s compromising its ability to attract marketers,” he added in a statement. “The company needs to show that user growth has returned, and it needs to lay out a clear vision for how it will attract even more users in the future.”

He added: “Because in social media, as in any industry, if you don’t have an audience then you don’t have a business.”

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